Improvisation
by Newtinmpls
Summary: When Gaige finds out the reality behind Angel the AI, she decides to do something about it. Spoilers for B2.
1. Chapter 1

_Authors note: so… Angel. At the time of starting this fic, I have not played the original Borderlands. So my assessment of Angel's personality, and her relationship with and reactions to Jack are entirely based on the events of B2._

 **Standard disclaimer: I do not own Borderlands 2, any of its characters, or any of the other wondrous creations of Gearbox Software, 2K Games or Iron Galaxy Software. However I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own creation, and any re-characterization you may notice.**

 **~~Paradigm Shift~~**

What kind of password was "I love you?" Gaige wondered, as they AI briefed them on what they would need to do to prevent Handsome Jack from fully charging the Vault Key. While the mechromancer could recall plenty of lurid fiction about lovebots and the like, she couldn't imagine any sort of affectionate relationship between Handsome Jack and his creatively misbehaving AI. And did the group really need a lecture on Jack's motivations right before going in to disable the infamous vault key?

Axton and Maya appeared to listen attentively. Kreig stood, head tilted to one side. There was no telling how much of what he was "listening to" had any basis whatsoever in reality.

Gaige tapped her foot impatiently as the AI droned on about charging the Vault Key and how despite its potency, Eridium was even more effective with a Catalyst. Well of course any chemical reaction was more effective with a catalyst which was the basis of some of the acidic-based ordinance that Hyperion had designed, and Gaige had improved. She contemplated some of her recent upgrades for DeathTrap.

Only a small part of her was still registering the AI's report that Jack had apparently "acquired" a Siren. Which had to be polite-speak for capturing one. Which raised the question of how in the Seven Hells any Siren could actually be captured? After all, if Lilith and Maya were reasonable examples; they both had the power to char the person making any such attempts to a fried crisp. Although to be sure, their powers were quite different. Lilith did some sort of dimensional travel type thing. She could survive it. The entities she inflicted it on, not so much. Or at least not without horrible injuries. If anyone threatened her, she could just phase away. Or melt the person. Or both. Given her temper, probably both.

Maya's powers seemed to be more about distorting a specific section of reality. Often a section focused on a living entity. And often said entity was not among the living when her phaselock released it. She was apparently capable of several specific types of distortions. Dr. Tannis (privately Gaige thought of her as "Dr-Tannis-the-batshit-crazy") had wanted to get Maya's assistance in more experiments after getting her hot little hands on the ECHO logs they'd found in the Hyperion Game Preserve. Apparently one of the possible "distortions" Maya was capable of producing was to suffuse the target with slag on what Dr. Batshit theorized was "a pervasive cellular level sufficient to facilitate the mutational process while allowing for the inherent organizational survivability reflex to be sustained". She'd written a paper on it.

Gaige had downloaded and read said paper, and aside from giving her a headache, it had also given her a week's worth of nightmares as to just what Handsome Jack and his cadre of questionably moral'ed Hyperion scientists might be up to. As well as some speculation as to why anyone could be willing to inflict such horrific research.

Angel seemed to be winding down. So… off to the heart of crazy-Jack-ville to de-acquire his Siren.

A rescue mission then.

Angel's voice seemed suddenly more intense, and abruptly the walls around them digistructed. Without conscious thought, Gaige palmed across the digi-storage module on her belt, and her favorite pistol shimmered into being in her hand.

Angel's voice was determined. "You will have to kill. Me."

And abruptly, seeming to hang in space in front of them, there was a young woman. Pale skin, dark eyes, hell of an expensive series of implants along her right temple. They made the custom job Gaige had gotten (which was small enough to be covered by her hair, unlike this gal's) look cheap. But all that was just background. She had wings; glowing white wings of energy, somewhat like the wings that Lilith and Maya manifested when using their Siren powers. And tracing esoteric curves and sigls down her left arm were the unmistakable tattoos of a siren.

Angel was a Siren. Not an AI at all. A fucking siren.

Wait. Gaige thought about Jack's sarcastic comments to the bandits brining him the bodies of allegedly dead sirens. He'd said that there were only ever six, and he knew three of them. Lilith was one. Maya was two. His nasty comment when they were trying to get to Bloodwing; that he'd gotten the Angel back under control, but his throwaway sarcastic reference to "women, am I right?" hadn't made sense at the time. Dammit.

And then there was a flare of light from a fancy electronic collar around Angel's neck. She cried out, but was pulled back into another room.

Maya, Axton and Kreig followed her. Gaige stood in the doorway, brain still trying to process this. What the fucking fuck?

There was a short hall that entered into a roughly circular room, with several enormous datascreens around the circumference. In the center of the room was a small circular area that Angel had been pulled back into. A small chair; a digistruct platform that currently held a small chair, a round table and the remains of a recent meal. To one side, Gaige could make out what looked to be a container of syrup. Set in a tripod holder was an enormous conical … something… made of some kind of stone with shimmering violet tracery woven through it.

The small circular area was enclosed by a barely visible force-field, and Angel hovered in the center of it; wings still extended. The top of the area was a three-cornered device that was obviously the generator for the force-field, but it was also something else. Three huge tubes fed into it, and from the center, three violet streams of energy fed into Angel. As near as Gaige could make out, into the collar she wore. Then out again, and into the … cone-thing? It had to be the key. The key that needed Eridium, and a Siren to charge.

Maya's delicate features were twisted into an expression of fury. "Using her. Just like the Brothers of the Impending Storm."

Axton's expression was worried. "She's barely more than a child."

Kreig stopped abruptly, staring at the syrup. In a soft pedantic voice he murmured. "And so it was recorded that the condemned did eat a hearty breakfast."

"You have to destroy the injectors." Angel gestured up to one corner of the central mechanism above her where the triad of Eridium converters processed what Gaige estimated had to be the greater part of the Eridium mined on the entire damn planet.

Gaige stood in the doorway, still trying to make this whole thing make sense. How the hell had Jack captured her? She was a fucking Siren. And she'd masqueraded as an AI. She had demonstrated an incredible ability to integrate with the software of … hell, of the Moonbase, to "move data around", to program the fake core for Sanctuary. She was a genius programmer.

And she'd had Jack looking over her shoulder the whole damn time. Was it the collar?

How had he collared her? When had he collared her?

Jack's voice came over an intercom. "Consider this your final warning - no, consider this MY final warning."

His tone made it clear that he was going to speech-i-fy as usual.

Krieg didn't wait for it. And unusually for him, he didn't go for his buzz axe first. He trigged his own digistorage belt and as he held his arms in place, a huge gold and black striped rocket launcher crackled into being over his shoulder. As the thing was still solidifying, he started unloading round after round after round directly into the nearest shimmering green injector port that Angel had indicated. Oddly though he did some damage, the rounds didn't seem to make it all the way out the other side.

"NO!" Jack's scream was equal parts fear and fury. "No, damn you, you're not going to hurt my baby girl!"

 _Baby Girl?!_ Gaige mouthed the words. Then added, mostly to herself. "Well, shit."

"Shields up!" And the three injector ports were suddenly covered with an overlay of crackling defensive energy.

Unfortunately for Jack, he hadn't entirely realized what Kreig was up to. The launcher rounds that the psycho had sent into the ports were still firmly lodged in place, and only after the shields finished forming did they detonate. Said detonation contained, and probably worsened by the shields in question.

"Thump" the first detonation was a muffled explosion that was magnified by the shielding. Gaige could see stress lines forming in the pump tubing. "Thump" the second went off. Louder this time; slightly audible through the cracks that were forming; there was a hiss and the violet glow starting to shine through the cracks.

One final THUMP and the shielding and the injector port exploded in a kaleidoscopic wash of energies.

Some sort of safety must have kicked in, because the pumps operating that section of tubing shut down instantly.

At the same moment, Angel gave a horrible, tortured shriek, and her whole body shuddered. She hung, pale and panting, wings still sustaining her. The other two streams of Eridium continued to pour into her…. And then out again, into the key.

"I'll try to release the shields on the other two injectors." Angel's voice sounded ragged, and she didn't look up at them. "I'm sorry for all the trouble. Jack won't give up his prized Siren so easily."

A low hum started, and digi-panels set into the floor all around the room began the process of constructing a cadre of Hyperion robots.

"METAL DANCERS" Kreig cried out enthusiastically. "METAL PUPPETS COME TO THE CHOIR OF DEMONS"

Jack's voice was almost a growl of hatred. "So this is how you bandits fight, is that it? You can't come straight for me, you come here to murder an innocent girl?"

Maya's hand sparkled with violet energies.

Axton was already eyeing the ceiling; looking for a good place to anchor his turret.

Gaige stood in the doorway. Normally running in, summoning DeathTrap, wreaking havok, with every weapon she had - normally that's what she would do.

Jack seemed to think that destroying the injectors would kill Angel. Angel seemed to think so too. Angel was a scarily powerful programmer. A scarily powerful Siren. And if she really was Jack's daughter that explained how she'd come under his control. She lived her entire life that way.

And despite having free run of every damn computer system on the planet, she hadn't been able to integrate herself into the Fast Travel system and escape. Gaige eyed the collar that Angel wore. The Fast Travel stations digistructed and then reconstructed everything, down to the molecular level. Which meant that if Angel had tried to travel that way, the collar would have come with her, and it obviously functioned as some type of control. Plus, if Jack had overseen her all these years, he probably had some way of surveilling everything she did or tried.

Oh maybe he didn't catch every little thing right when she did it, but any time that Angel had done something out of line, it had only been a matter of time before he caught up with her. So. The collar had to go. And Angel needed to escape.

Lucky for Angel, Gaige was a genius.

And really good at improvising. She shifted the fingers of her metal hand, and her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.


	2. Chapter 2

_Authors note: so… Angel. At the time of starting this fic, I have not played the original Borderlands. So my assessment of Angel's personality, and her relationship with and reactions to Jack are entirely based on the events of B2. And given that I disagree with a lot of the other fanfic versions of Angel... well anything you like is probably based in Borderlands, and if you really dislike it, blame me._

 **Standard disclaimer: I do not own Borderlands 2, any of its characters, or any of the other wondrous creations of Gearbox Software, 2K Games or Iron Galaxy Software. However I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own creation, and any re-characterization you may notice.**

 **~~Don't Mess with A Girl~~**

"Every friend, every child, every person you ever passed on the street. I'm gonna kill them all." Jack's voice was so distorted by hatred as to be barely understandable.

But despite the fact that he had (through Angel) researched each and every one of them, he didn't seem to be addressing or threatening anyone by name. So while after whatever happened he would certainly be able to review the logs, or whatever, right now he was too caught up in screaming his head off to keep track of exactly who was where, thought Gaige.

And Angel, who might normally be tracking or logging things, was a bit busy digistructing ammo, and providing a semi-panicked running commentary about what sort of robots and armaments Jack was calling forth to use to "protect" her.

If Angel died, Jack would lose his Siren. Who knew how long it might take to charge the damn key then. Unless, of course that the team could somehow steal it. Now that was a thought. No, don't get distracted.

If Angel could die, and wouldn't be just get saved by the new-U system, that would explain why Jack was having such a total meltdown. So in order to rescue her, all Gaige had to do was to somehow get her into the system, and the only time she'd ever seen anything like that….

Her jaw dropped. Hell. This could work.

"DeathTrap!" She gestured and nanobots coalesced into the best robot ever.

She needed time. Some. Anyway.

"Visual display message to Maya's ECHO, scramble mode 1: begin" She subvocalized.

Across the room, just raising some sort of severely overgunned hyperion 'bot, Maya startled for a moment.

Gaige knew that displayed across the screen of her EHCO HUD was a brief message.

Saltl mhi I thnki I nca asve nagel tub ya ogtta ivge me item

She knew that Jack… via Angel, could probably eavesdrop on most of their audible commentary, but maybe this wouldn't be so obvious. Unfortunately from the frown that Maya sent in Gaige's direction, it didn't see like her message had been as easy to decipher as the mechromancer had hoped.

Well screw it. Damn well educated Siren; she would just have to figure the damn thing out.

Gage turned and ran out the doorway.

Across the stupid spiral walkways with sadly insufficient railings to the Fast Travel station that if Jack was really smart he would have fucking locked down – please let him not be that smart – or it could have been destroyed by friendly fire by the trigger happy slabs that were still buzzing around the remains of the Bunker.

And just for a moment, Gaige felt sad. After all, with a proper AI that thing could have been soo much cooler. Then she thought of the trouble that 1340 could cause if he was installed in housing with that much raw power, and then shuddered to herself and thought the better of it.

Sanctuary…sanctuary…by the time she got to the station she was out of breath, and only then did it occur to her she could have just had DeathTrap carry her.

It wasn't locked down.

 _Sanctuary here I come_ , she thought, and hit the coordinates.

This time she was smarter, hopped up on DeathTrap's shoulder and had him take her directly to the upper window, where, a huge monster of a man was doing one-armed pushups on the balcony.

"Brick!" She cried, jumping down off of DT. "I got a totally crucial job for you."

He got up easily, not even out of breath. "Hey, little slab."

"And it involves you punching someone really hard."

Brick gave an easy, grin, almost childlike in his joy. "That's my favorite kind of job, slab."

"Take the fast travel out to the Bunker"; she cued her ECHO to send him the coordinates. "Then head in and down to the AI core in the basement. Right before you get to a noisy fight, there will be a New-U digistruct tower. Wait there. You absolutely have to wait for me. It's totally crucial."

"Got it, slab."

From the room beyond, Mordecai called "Need me to shoot somebody? I'm a better shot when I'm drunk."

From the sound of it, he was about three barrels of rakk ale gone.

"Nope Mordecai." Oh wow, if anyone could ruin things, it was a completely drunk sniper shooting things up. "I need someone who can kill somebody in one punch."

"Not my style," Mordecai muttered. "Instead of punching, I prefer to keep my distance from the target."

"That's cool." Said Gaige absently as she jumped back up onto DT's arm. "Back to the Fast Travel Station, my robot of awesomeness!"

Once there, she entered the coordinates for Ellie's place in the Dust.

There was a rush of blue, like riding an awesome wave of sheer nano-power and then she landed just outside the garage. How the heck Ellie had managed to have a Fast Travel station placed there was a mystery. Usually there had to be a certain amount of population, or something. Which kind of argued that the Happy Pig must have been some sort of population center at some point.

On the other hand, given the ridiculous success of Scooter's "Catch-A-Ride", maybe that was how it had gotten justified.

"Ellie?" Usually she was somewhere nearby.

"Hey, darlin'" Ellie gave a wave from underneath the elevated car she was working on. "I'm just trying some modification to this here technical. I think they're gonna be Bad Ass." Visible on the front of the vehicle was one of her self-image hood ornaments. Only it had been modified by the addition of a pair of oversized Rakk-style wings.

Gaige gave a respectful whistle. "Sweet look there." She said. "But I have a huge totally crucial lifesaving favor to ask of you, and I'm really really in a hurry. Like a total life or death emergency."

"Sweetie, you know I'd help ya out with whatever ya need," Ellie reached up with a wrench to adjust something on the underside of the technical.

"Good." Subvocalizing instructions to DT, Gaige ran over to where Ellie's digiscanner was connected to the Catch-A-Ride system. Well, it was wired in manually, but Gaige normally carried a collection of adapters in her gear bag. Shouldn't be a problem. Shutting down the power to the Catch-A-Ride, she quickly disconnected the wires.

"I just need your digiscanner. I'll bring it right back, I promise."

"Okay," Ellie gave a grunt and muttered something highly profane about the probably ancestry of the person who had made the part she was working on.

DT followed Gaige to the Fast Travel point, cradling the Digiscanner awkwardly in his oversized arms. She was gathering up the somewhat unwieldy cord, trying to coil it, but it wasn't being very cooperative.

Then Ellie's voice came more sharply. "You took my what?! You get your fine ass over her and explain yourself, sweet cheeks!"

Oh god.

"Ellie. Smartest, most coolest scrap dealer, plotter and mastermind of gang wars ever, please, please, please I'm trying to save someone's life I totally swear I'll explain it all when I get back."

"Well…"

"And if I do this right, Handsome Jack is going to be pissed as hell."

"Now that's a whole nother thing. Anything pisses off **that** sumbitch is worth doin'. Just you get your sweet self back here afterword and tell me all about it."

 **~~This is a Plan?~~**

Gaige and DT jumped out of the Fast Travel Station and ran back to the access door. Or at least Gaige ran. DT kind of floated a little lower than usual.

Brick's voice came through her private ECHO channel. "So. Who you want me to punch, slab?"


	3. Chapter 3

_Authors note: so… Angel. At the time of starting this fic, I have not played the original Borderlands. So my assessment of Angel's personality, and her relationship with and reactions to Jack are entirely based on the events of B2. And given that I disagree with a lot of the other fanfic versions of Angel... well anything you like is probably based in Borderlands, anything you really dislike, blame me._

 **Standard disclaimer: I do not own Borderlands 2, any of its characters, or any of the other wondrous creations of Gearbox Software, 2K Games or Iron Galaxy Software. However I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own creation, and any re-characterization you may notice.**

 **~~Um..Let Me Explain~~**

"Brick." Gaige was out of breath, and grabbed the doorway to the Control Core entryway. Brick was waiting for her, standing near the New-U station. Thank goodness he'd made it so quickly. She tried to stop panting enough to talk to him, and barely managed to get the words out. "I've got a plan that will really really piss off Jack. Wait here and be ready to punch someone really really hard."

Brick gave a very enthusiastic and somewhat unsettling smile. "You will be bringing this somebody over here and I punch them?"

Gaige took another breath. "First I get the necklace off. Then you punch as hard as you can."

Down the short hallway, the sounds of robot's instructing surrender, the thump-thump-thump of Axton's turret and the irritating sound of Handsome Jack making still yet more threats were easily audible.

The huge man smiled and nodded. "That's the kind of plan I like, slab." Gaige took it as a high compliment that he had not just joined in the mayhem in Angel's chambers.

Down the short hall to Angel's chambers, she could see Maya, hand extended, holding aloft a pale oversized WAR loader encased in violet light. A mechanical voice similar to Gaige's 1340 sheild was proclaiming. "This unit is in need of repair."

Krieg was laughing as he threw his spinning, squealing buzz axe into the WAR loader's glowing crimson targeting eye. "PEEK A BOO."

Angel, still panting slightly, was glaring upward. "Now, Roland! That second shield needs to come down!"

Crawling among the pipes and wires atop the upper portion of Angel's enclosure, Roland nodded. "Right. I'm on it." He finished unscrewing some kind of access plate and flung it spinning across the room. Three different bots seemed to presume it was an attack or a grenade of some kind and several laser beams sliced it to shrapnel.

Handsome Jack's furious voice came simultaneously over their ECHO's and also over the loudspeakers in the room. "You are murdering an innocent girl."

"Don't listen to him." Angel cried out; and then she drifted over as near as Axton as she could get. Her fingers danced in the air.

Gaige realized it was a little like she was typing on a virtual keyboard; but not quite enough movement. An old habit maybe?

"Here." Angel called to Axton. "I'm sending you ammo." As she typed, one of the Digiplates in the floor panels just outside her enclosure shimmered, and resolved into a short table with a series of small green boxes with a Dahl logo on them. There were also neatly laid out belts of ammo to go in the feeder of Axton's turret.

Axton danced under the swing of a loader that was wielding twin spinning blades as weapons. He looked at the supplies Angel had just called up and gave a pleased chuckle. "Well, Angel clearly knows how to shop. Nothing but the best for the old lady."

Another flare of nano-enriched energy and the Fast Travel station disgorged DT, carrying Ellie's digiscanner and a huge coiled cable.

From where she was standing, Gaige could see the green shielding from the second of the three Eridium feeders shimmer and fade. Angel nodded and offered Roland a brief smile that seemed rather forced. Before the young girl could say anything, there was a familiar high pitched whine.

Kreig's buzz-axe spun through the air and pierced the center of the injector cover. The whine of the weapon choked off to a glug and fine spray of violet showered out and coated two nearby loaders whose fan blades were just beginning to spin. Almost instantly there came the chunking sound of the safety gauge and the shimmering violet energy beam flowing from that feeder to Angel's collar cut off.

She cried out in pain, clutching at the collar.

"Dammit." Handsome Jack's voice was filled with hate. "You are endangering my baby girl."

Angel glared up at the nearest screen, face still wan with pain. "You've used me." She was still floating, though nearer the floor now.

"Sweetheart, everything you could ever want is within these four walls!"

Kreig snorted, and then spoke in a carefully cadenced voice: " _She's only a bird in a gilded cage / A beautiful sight to see / You may think she is happy and free from care  
She's not, though she seems to be"_

Axton raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he gunned down the fan-bladed loaders.

A squat pillar began to raise up from the floor. Crackles of energy began to emanate from it but before anything else could happen; Maya gestured and it was obscured by dark energies. The sounds of warping metal echoed across the room.

DeathTrap waited at the edge of the room, digiscanner held carefully. Coils of heavy cable trailed back to the FastTravel station. Gaige was carefully tightening an adapter that was affixed into the back of the FastTravel console. "That oughta do it." She muttered in a pleased tone. "I am the greatest engineer alive!" Then looking down into Angel's chamber, she started subvocalizing another message to Maya's visual display.

"Got it." Cried Roland from atop the cage. He sent another cover plate spinning across the room, opposite the side that DT was on. The two remaining loader-bots focused on it and unloaded their clips.

"Perfect timing." Axton muttered, as he finished reloading his turret. The turret went left, he went right and in seconds the two loaders were reduced to ordinance-ridden scrap.

Angel was staring up at Roland. "Do it."

Ignoring Jack's screaming, which was now not even remotely coherent or understandable, Roland carefully aimed his Hornet point blank at the last Eridium feeder. He looked down at Angel. "You sure about this?"

"Just do it."

Roland pulled the trigger.

The feeder cut off.

Angel screamed, and collapsed.

And then Maya held out her hands, violet energies lashing out like so many tiny whips. In a matter of moments, the surveillance cameras had all been destroyed.

"Angel!" Jack's scream almost deafened them all.

Angel lifted up her head, perhaps intending to say something when a bolt of energy from DT, who had slowly drifted over next to her, stunned her. Before anyone else could react, DT then activated the digiscanner that Gaige had borrowed from Ellie and Angel disintegrated into a wash of blue nano-energies.


	4. Chapter 4

_Authors note: Insert clever comment… or something. Oh, and yeah I know that technically B2 didn't have laser weapons, but that never stops a genius who needs one._

 **Standard disclaimer: I do not own Borderlands 2, any of its characters, or any of the other wondrous creations of Gearbox Software, 2K Games or Iron Galaxy Software. However I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own creation, and any re-characterization you may notice.**

 **~~A Job For Brick~~**

Handsome Jack reacted to the loss of video from Angels chamber by upping the volume of his shrieking threats. Distortion echoed through the chamber, making a painful counterpoint to his not-particularly-coherent promises of violence and retribution.

Axton clapped his hands over his ears. Turning to Maya, he mouthed. "You couldn't take out the speakers too?" Sometimes he envied the old lady. At least she didn't have ears to suffer this annoyance.

Maya raised an eyebrow and shrugged, and then tilted her head toward the FastTravel station where Gaige had been working. She mouthed an answer back to him. "She has a plan."

Gaige, Axton thought to himself. Gaige has a plan. This could be cause for celebration. Or serious apprehension. Or both. Reflexively he checked his ammo supply.

The mechromancer was in front of the FastTravel station practically dancing with eagerness, waving around her oversized laser pistol. "Almost Brick, almost, just gotta do one thing. C'mon, girl, I know you're in there, c'mon, fucking get an electronic move-"

A wash of blue nano-energy poured out from the FastTravel array, resolving into a pale skinned, brown haired very surprised looking girl.

"YES!" Gaige gave a fist pump of pure delight. There was nothing like a hastily-cobbled-together-sorta-theory coming together as an awesome plan of total rescue-ness.

Before the new arrival could say anything, Gaige leveled the pistol at the left side of the girl's neck. "Sorry, this is gonna hurt, but trust me, I have a genius plan to rescue you." Then she pulled the trigger. With a hiss and a crackle the left side of the collar around Angel's neck exploded into a collection of bits of plas-glass, twisted metal shards and burnt bits of plastic. The girl gasped in pain and surprise, and the side of her neck erupted into blisters. Gaige grabbed the remains of the collar and wrenched it off of the right side of Angel's neck.

As the young siren flinched, Gaige almost felt guilty - but it was all part of the super-genius plan. "Now, Brick!"

The huge man gave an almost infinitesimal shrug and then let fly. His left fist snapped forward faster than Gaige could track it. He slammed it into Angel's upper torso with all his strength. There was a horrible crunching sound as most of Angel's ribs were not just broken but crushed. The poor girl slammed back into the wall with another loud crunch, and then slowly slid down the wall, leaving a smear of red where the back of her skull had been crushed.

Jack's incoherent rant must have ended because the sound of Angel landing on the floor was clearly audible. No new attack bots, no screaming, no nothing.

Roland jumped down from the top of Angel's former cage. "That?! That was your plan?"

From behind him, Lilith commented sarcastically. "Hey, evil AI turns out to be evil Siren. How is killing her, and thwarting the Handsome Jerk not a genius plan?"

Gaige flashed her an appreciative grin.

Axton recalled his turret. "Lilith, weren't you instructed to stay at headquarters?"

Lilith frowned. "I don't like being out of the loop."

Axton shook his head. "Am I the only one here who has any respect for the chain of command?"

"Probably." Roland answered dryly.

Lilith came over to stand next to Roland. "Lieutenant Davis is pretty chain-of-command oriented."

"Yes, he is reliable." Roland stated, in irritated voice.

"Oh I'm reliable." Lilith assured him. "I'm just don't listen to certain orders."

Maya raised a delicate eyebrow. "That would be any orders you don't intend to follow in the first place."

Lilith winked at her.

Roland strode over and stood staring down at the torso sized cylinder that Angel had been charging. "So... this thing is some kind of key?"

Then he shook his head and gestured in the general direction of Gaige, Brick and the FastTravel station. "This lack of logic is even worse than some of what Handsome Jack claims to have done in the name of so-called civilization and peace. Gaige's plan to stop Angel from killing herself is to kill her." He turned to Lilith. "And my clear instructions to you were to stay at headquarters. And somehow this results in you coming along to the robo-fest-of-death party?"

Gaige looked highly pleased, and whispered in a not especially quiet voice to Brick. "See, I'm rubbing off on him. He even sounds like me now."

Roland gave the mechromancer a sharp look. Then he seemed to realize what he'd actually said.

Axton looked away so as to not be obvious about his grin.

"Little slab," Brick started, and then paused. "Next time, I get to punch some robots."

Gaige shrugged. "Fair enough. Next time there's a robo-fest-of-death you are definitely going to be invited. Anyway, Brick, you know what to do."

"Punch when needed." Brick nodded. He knelt in front of the Fast Travel station and held out his arms. Out of the array poured out another glowing blue waterfall of energy that resolved into the same disoriented, slightly scared looking girl that he had just punched into the wall. She lay in his arms, blinking.

Then she hesitantly looked up at Brick, and then over at Gaige. "Why...?" Her voice was hesitant and fearful.

Gaige held up the remains of the collar that the mechromancer had blasted off the young siren's neck. "You're smart. Maybe not a genius, but I'm sure you will figure it out."

"See ya later little slab." Brick stood, and dialed a destination into the Fast Travel.

Axton's eyes were wide. "What the-"

Maya slapped a delicate hand over his mouth. "Little pitchers." She said, pointing with her other hand to the nearest (still smoking) video screen.

Roland's eyes widened. "So she's not really-"

Lilith grabbed him hard and kissed him.


	5. Chapter 5

_Authors note: so… Angel. At the time of starting this fic, I had not played the original Borderlands. So my assessment of Angel's personality, and her relationship with and reactions to Jack are entirely based on the events of B2. And possibly highly influenced by some of the fanfic I have read on this site._

 _I'm having a LOT of problems with this chapter, so I thought better to get it out and maybe that will move me along. Hopefully._

 **Standard disclaimer: I do not own Borderlands 2, any of its characters, or any of the other wondrous creations of Gearbox Software, 2K Games or Iron Galaxy Software. However I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own creation, and any re-characterization you may notice.**

 **~~Paradigm Shift~~**

Brick grinned into space as he rode the blue rush of energies through the New-U/transport system. This was the best job he ever had.

Angel surrendered to the wash of energies. It felt wonderful, even euphoric. Swept along in the electronic tide, she reached out into the mass of communication tendrils. Along with "New-U" and Fast Travel, the river of electrons had branches to, and sort of "through" all the planetary hubs, and even the lunar ones. She had been too shocked after the first time Brick had struck her to notice this or to react much to the wash of energy and information.

Or maybe had it been the collar? Even wondering about it, she felt more free, more alive than she had in a long while.

She could feel Brick beside her, his thoughts as solid here as his fist was in the waking world.

Along and within the rush of energies she could sort of "hear" other people traveling to and from different New-U and Fast Travel stations. They didn't seem to be aware of each other, and their thoughts seemed as slowed as Brick's did. That didn't really make sense, though. Brick was sweet, but he was profoundly ... well...uncomplicated.

Almost by habit, she "reached" out to her father's console; flipping through files and "looking" through the last few instructions.

She "looked" at the video data of her own murder.

Her life signs had taken their first hit when the vault hunters had destroyed the first of the three Eridian feeders. Metabolism drop, adrenaline spike and a number of interesting changes to her electrolyte balance. Odd, she hadn't recalled the monitors on her being so detailed. She had rallied, somewhat, but not entirely. When the second feeder had been destroyed the same sort of reaction had occurred, only worse. Some of the readings seemed to indicate an increase in the normal homeostatic vacillations ... she had been going into shock.

Absently Angel thought to herself that Patricia Tannis would love to review this data.

Just that thought send another tendril across to what remained of Dr. Tannis' backup drives in Jackville. Originally Fyrestone; that's where Patricia had first med Zed Blanco, not too long after he'd lost his medical license. Not for the first time, Angel wondered what had happened. She should have been able to find something. Mentally she shrugged. Something to consider later.

Scanning through the timestamps of Jack's files, she noticed a number of "immediately effective" directives had been implemented as soon as that first Eridian feed had gone offline. Modifications to her father's will, cancellations of numerous accounts...New U account listing changes and deletions.

Wait-

And then she was poured out of the shimmering sea of data onto an unforgiving concrete surface that stung slightly with uncomfortable heat. The sun blazed down on her, and she instinctively raised an arm in an attempt to block the glare. Sweat began to cover her, and the air felt thick with dust.

She could feel the fiery heat of the sun burning down on her. Intellectually she knew that the reddening and radiation burns that humans experienced from such contact took time to happen. She knew that the skin on the arm that was ineffectually trying to shield her gaze was not burning. It would not blister from an exposure as brief as this one. But it felt like it. Heat radiated up from the concrete around her. She should get up, but the unrelenting burning sun seemed to bake all the energy out of her body.

Nearby, a wash of blue energies coalesced into an enormous form that towered over her. He stood over her, blocking the sun. Within moments she felt notably cooler. She took a slightly deeper breath than she'd been able to manage.

Looking up at the mountain of a man casting the oh-so-welcome shadow, Angel said, "Brick, we've got to get back in there."

The huge man frowned down at her. "Gaige said to keep..." He paused, concentrating.

Angel struggled to her feet, which put her face back into the horrifyingly intense sunlight. Focus, she told herself. "Back in the system." She clarified.

Brick's expression indicated that this had not cleared things up in the least.

"Hit me again." She said. "Really hard."

He grinned like a small child given a sweet. "Okay."


End file.
